I’ve often said that simply buying, amassing and displaying toys is not enough to sustain my interest and passion for Transformers as a hobby. I’ve spent many years researching variants, writing articles, photographing toys and trying to unearth unknown facets of the global Transformers and pre-Transformers history since joining the community. Much of my writing in the last year or two has become geared towards new figure reviews, with vintage Transformer articles becoming rarer as my budget and priorities have shifted unpredictably. With my collection of toys seemingly resembling the converging direction of many others’, I felt like I needed to find further ways of keeping things interesting. I’m focusing on Masterpiece for this article because they’re probably a lot more removed from the idea of straightforward children’s toys than most of the other Transformers product we have today, in the minds of collectors.

2017 was a year. It occupied 12 pages of a traditional calendar, or even more if you had a weekly or even one of those fancy-learnin' word-a-day calendars! And during that year, things relating to the Transformers happened. Some more positive than others, or more fondly looked back on. Not everything was a winner, after all. Thus, I'll memorialize the year that was with some of my best remembered times in Transformers - in no particular order since I'm bad at chronology sometimes as well as weighing priority of a memory over others. I am literally the best at lists.

We learned late this afternoon that both Steam and Playstation Network have delisted a number of Transformers video games from their store pages. Affected by this are War For Cybertron, Fall of Cybertron, Rise of The Dark Spark, and Transformers Devastation. None of these titles can be purchased digitally on the named platforms as of today, though users who have purchased them previously are still able to download and install the games. At last report, the XBox Marketplace had not followed suit in removing them. We can only speculate right now whether this is due to an elapsed license, or some other factor at work, but as of right now, tracking down physical media, where applicable, seems the only option now for obtaining these games.

The BBC and The Guardian are both reporting on a new development with the UK arm of Toys R Us that's putting serious pressure on the retailer. While the recently discussed bankruptcy protection proceedings of Toys R Us here in the US is not directly impacting other regions, Toys R Us UK is nonetheless investigating solutions to deal with its own financial problems, but with an added wrinkle: If the company cannot contribute £9 million (about $12 million) to its pension fund at least one state agency, the Pensions Protection Fund may vote against its current restructuring proposal, which could ultimately lead to all the UK stores shutting down. Keep reading for more.

We reported about a week ago on the possibility of a merger between Hasbro and Mattel, initiated by Hasbro themselves. We have word via Reuters that this effort did not proceed very far, and as of the current time the dealings are not moving forward. Reuters reports via confidential sources that part of the failure to deal at this time was due to what Mattel indicated was an "undervaluing" of the company by Hasbro. We don't expect much more to develop on this anytime soon, but as this wasn't the first time Hasbro has put out feelers, we're also sure it won't be the last. Find a link to the report in the full article below!

I'm ExVee; my name is Chris. If you read Gizmodo, or know people that do, you probably heard about a photo of a small piece of deco work on the brand new Power of The Primes Jazz, which says in a Cybertronic font "MAGA". It's a font whose development is credited to longtime super-fan Jim Sorenson, and which has been used on Transformers toys here and there for a while now. One notable use was on Titans Return Seaspray where it was used to inscribe the name Alana inside the forearms, referencing Seaspray's love interest from an episode of the G1 cartoon. What you may not know is, I'm the one who took that original photo, with only the best of intentions. But, we all know where that can lead you. Keep reading...